Does Stephen Curry Injury Increase Chances of Warriors Trading D'Angelo Russell?
From the moment D'Angelo Russell arrived by way of Kevin Durant's departure, the Golden State Warriors have faced questions about their intent. Stephen Curry's latest injury, a broken left hand expected to sideline him at least three months, will only embolden those inquiries.
Did the Warriors acquire Russell just to trade him down the line? Is the plan to move him sooner than that, perhaps as early as this season or even this calendar year? Or do they actually view him as a long-term contributor capable of amplifying their core and reviving a dynasty now defunct?
General manager Bob Myers has pushed back against the prevailing assumption that Golden State landed Russell on a four-year max contract with the sole purpose of seeing who else he could become. "We didn't sign him with the intention of trading him," he told reporters in mid-July.
Russell is 23 and coming off a career year that cemented his place among might-be stars. The Warriors had just lost a star, one of the biggest ever. That they wished to erase some of their deficit with a young player on the rise is not hard to believe—especially when the opportunity cost amounted to Andre Iguodala, subjection to the hard cap and, assuming this year's top-20-protected pick doesn't convey to the Brooklyn Nets, one first-rounder.
Still, Myers' rebuttal bled duality.
Even at its most genuine, the Warriors' commitment to Russell was conditional. The relationship between teams and players always is, but the loyalty to unproven newcomers specifically hinges on successful integration.
Only a select few are above that line of thinking. Russell isn't one of them. The Warriors didn't acquire him to refit the roster around his skill set. They gambled on his finding himself within what was already in place.
Could he play off Curry? Carry bench-heavy units on his own? How would his arrival impact the defense?Would Klay Thompson's return allay those defensive concerns? Complicate the offensive fit? Both? Neither?
Curry's injury further delays Golden State's capacity to measure Russell's fit. His injury "typically knocks an NBA player out about six to eight weeks," per The Athletic's Anthony Slater, but that unofficial timetable assumes the Warriors won't exercise extreme caution—and that, above all, they'll have reason to bring him back at all.
Golden State's owner and CEO, Joe Lacob, will rail against the latter. On the subject of tanking this season following Curry's injury, he told ESPN's Ramona Shelburne:
"It is against every single thing I and we stand for. We will fight like hell. Develop our young guys. Learn to win," he continued. "You don't get better by trying to lose. Our entire organization is about winning. And we will win. Some bumps in the road, perhaps. But we will never accept losing."
Lacob talks as if the Warriors have a say in the matter. They don't.
Few deemed them playoff locks ahead of this season. They did nothing to quash those doubts out of the gate, and Curry's time away, however long it lasts, pushes them closer to being organically bad.
The Warriors are getting outscored by 10.6 points per 100 possessions with Curry on the floor. They're even worse when he's on the bench. The returns aren't any rosier in the (scant) time Russell and Draymond Green have logged without him.
Small samples are not conducive to meaningful conclusions, but the Warriors haven't left much room for optimism. They were pummeled in their first game against the Los Angeles Clippers, the new benchmark for title contenders. They were throttled by an Oklahoma City Thunder team enduring a similar, if more extensive, transition period. And they were getting waxed by the Phoenix Suns at the time of Curry's injury.
This plays right into the D'Angelo Russell conundrum. It would only ever make sense to move him if the Warriors have something to immediately play for, and if his trade value is sniffing its peak.
Right now, neither is true.
Russell is averaging 16.3 points and 6.0 assists per game while shooting 42.9 percent on two-pointers and 33.3 percent from beyond the arc. He's getting to the line at a career-high clip, but shooting a personal-worst 61.1 percent when he's there. He's currently slashing 17.6/14.3/64.3 when playing without Curry, over which time Golden State is getting massacred.
Limited samples are again the best defense here. Russell is new to the Warriors and their offensive system. His pick-and-roll frequency has dropped by more than 16 percent compared to last season, and he doesn't enjoy the same on-ball usage or possession time.
Fitting in is a process. Both Golden State and Russell will adjust, and he'll play better and boost his value before his trade restriction lifts on Dec. 14.
To what end, though?
Getting him on a max contract was hardly considered a home run over the summer. He needs to match or exceed last year's good vibes for the Warriors to be sitting on a prime asset. And even then, it's not clear what they could net for him.
Russell-to-the-Minnesota Timberwolves has been a popular scenario since he joined Golden State. But while dealing him and salary filler for Robert Covington and Jeff Teague might be a realistic end game, it can't actually be the Warriors' end game.
This is where the opportunity cost of Russell's arrival clashes with his trade value. At least keeping him allows Golden State to sell whatever star potential lingers. Moving him for an expiring contract and one of the league's top wing defenders is tougher to spin when the initial price was, again, Iguodala, at least one first and what minimal maneuverability they had.
Expanding Russell hypotheticals to include more moving parts doesn't help matters. The Warriors are hard-capped and devoid of impactful sweeteners.
Reconciling a sunk cost ahead of disaster has its merits, but Golden State isn't close to that point. Russell's tenure with the team isn't yet five games old, and even as this season's sample size expands, it will never be fully telltale.
The Warriors won't have a hold on how he fits beside Curry, Green and Thompson by the trade deadline. They'll be lucky if he's played five games with Curry alone by then. No matter how bad things get for Russell or the team, they will always have the incentive of the unknown: that reason to believe it can get better.
Waiting to render a verdict on the new-look core perhaps always made the most sense. Curry's injury invites even more patience. Barely losing this year's first-round pick already started to feel like this team's ceiling. That inkling now defaults to some form of draft-lottery odds.
Tank, don't tank, bring back Curry, shut him down—it doesn't matter. The Warriors appear to have punched their ticket to the lottery. Any package built around Russell looks much better if attached to, say, a top-10 pick or better.
That framework isn't getting Giannis Antetokounmpo or the next top-10 player who becomes available. The Warriors would need to win the draft lottery to enter that realm of possibility. And even then, they're at the mercy of which players reach the auction block and the not-insignificant number of teams still able to put together more enticing offers:
But waiting to shop Russell isn't about getting any one player. It is a matter of logic: Attaching him to a better draft pick while outside the hard-cap has fundamentally more value to a team searching for alternative star power or attempting to divest it.
Treading water in Curry's absence and remaining within striking distance of a playoff berth wouldn't change the calculus. If the Warriors are in that position, they will have hit on Russell. They'd have little reason to reroute him before seeing how he meshes with a fully healthy core.
Ulterior motives may have once dictated Golden State's plan for Russell.
Patience must govern it now.
Unless otherwise noted, stats courtesy of NBA.com, Basketball Reference or Cleaning the Glass. Salary and cap-hold information via Basketball Insiders, RealGM and Spotrac.
Dan Favale covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter (@danfavale) and listen to his Hardwood Knocks podcast, co-hosted by B/R's Andrew Bailey.
